All Berned Out?

After a close loss in Nevada on Saturday, the media and political pundits are declaring that Democratic socialist candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign is dead.

The fierce criticism denotes he doesn’t have the delegates, the diverse coalition and broad enough political platform to attract voters — so his establishment rival Hillary Clinton will certainly win by default. Conspicuous mainstream biases and an expected loss in South Carolina have sent Berners into panic mode desperately asking, "Has Sanders’ campaign really berned out?"

Sanders acknowledged during his concession speech that his campaign still has long road ahead, but defiantly rejected assumptions that the Bern has lost its heat.

“We have come a very long way in nine months” Sanders said. “It is very clear to me and I think most observers that the wind is at our backs. We have the momentum. And I believe that when Democrats assemble in Philadelphia in July at that convention we are going to see the results of one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States.”

A pointed argument against Sanders’ campaign is his perpetual struggle with African-American voters, and the Clintons (the pro-black power couple of the 1990s) will surely sweep up those votes in the South.

Yet Nevada’s results detail an optimistic sign for Sanders with voters of color.

Despite conflicting evidence from both camps, Sanders — surprisingly — may have won the Hispanic vote. While both candidates are hotly contesting the issue surrounding unreliable polls and data, Clinton can nowhere near make the claim that she decisively won the Hispanic vote by a landslide.

“What we learned today is that Hillary Clinton’s firewall with Latino voters is a myth,” Arturo Carmona, deputy political director for the Sanders' campaign, wrote in the statement to the press shortly after the Nevada caucus closed.

And as CounterPunch speculates, Sanders’ brush with the Latino vote is just the beginning. Nevada was the first of 11 states with high Latino voter populations to go to the polls in the next month, so Nevada’s ambiguous results may be a strong indicator that the tides are turning in Sanders’ favor.

Yet his potential stronger hold with Hispanic voters than African-Americans does not necessarily negate Sanders doesn’t have a shot at winning the black vote. Clinton is getting votes out of pragmatics but Sanders is winning them through inspiration. If the Vermont senator does a better job at promoting his agenda to black communities, something may stick.